Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Bahadur Shah, the last emperor of Mughal period, who was tortured by the British regime in India, was born in 1775. He was the son of Akbar -2 and the grandson of the King Shah Alam, took reigns of the kingdom in India as the heir to Akbar -2 but was the King himself just for namesake. He spent a major part of his life in prisons of the British emperor in India, and had a very tragic and painful life. He died in 1862, and that was also the end of the Mughal period in India.

ęZafarĘ had stated his life under the influence of the great scholar, and in tradition of the literary environment during the kingdom of Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan, which had eminent great poets like Sauda, Meer, and Insha in their courts. He had to face a great defeat to his kingdom from the British emperor and spent difficult times, particularly during the last days of his life. And his poetry can easily depict his agony and mental and physical tortures.

Zafar wrote hundreds and thousands of verses, which are published in four volumes. This volume includes some representative poems of this great poet, and that proves him as the third great poet of Urdu, after Ghalib and Momin.

These verses have been translated into English by Khwaja Tariq Mahmood, who has earlier done similar poetic translation into English of the poems of Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi and Shakeel Budauni. As publishers we feel pride to present this collection to our readers.